Gondola
A gondola lift is a cable car in which several cabins (colloquially known as gondolas ) are clamped to a continuously revolving rope and are thus moved from one station to the other on one side of the lane and back to the first station on the opposite side, whereby the rope is usually moved runs over cable car supports. In the stations, the cabins are usually decoupled from the rope and guided on a hanging rail in the opposite direction for departure. The cabs are slowed down considerably for getting in and out or even stopped completely. By separating fast travel on the route and slow passage through stations for a smooth passenger change, a high transport capacity is achieved. The common gondolas have a capacity of 2 to 15 people. On the outside of the smaller gondolas there are often holders for winter sports equipment such as skis and snowboards .
Occasionally large cabin aerial tramways are colloquially referred to as gondola lifts , although technically they represent a separate type of aerial cableway.
application
Gondola lifts are mostly found in ski areas and transport winter sports enthusiasts there in winter and mountain hikers and other tourists all year round . Sometimes they also have special gondolas for transporting injured people or paragliders and hang-gliders or other loads, for example for the restaurant at the mountain station or for a mountain hut . Gondola lifts often serve as tourist attractions, from the Schauinslandbahn , the first passenger gondola lift opened in 1930, to the older gondola lifts from Rüdesheim am Rhein to the Niederwalddenkmal and the Waldecker Bergbahn to the modern, long-distance gondola lifts, e.g. B. the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway in Australia, the Genting Skyway in Malaysia or the Ngong Ping 360 in Hong Kong. In larger amusement parks or on extensive exhibition grounds and zoos, gondola lifts, so-called skyrides, can also be found, for example the gondola lifts over the various national garden shows or the gondola lift over the Ocean Park in Hong Kong .
Some gondolas are part of the local public transport in mountainous places, such as the new Rittner cable car in Bozen , the gondola that connects Annaba in Algeria with the high-altitude suburb of Seraidi , the lines J and K of the Metrocable as part of the Metro de Medellín , Colombia or the Metrocable from Caracas , Venezuela , but also in flat terrain to cross bodies of water such as the Rheinseilbahnen Kölner Seilbahn and Koblenz Cable Car , the Mississippi Aerial River Transit (dismantled again in 1994) in New Orleans or the Volga cable car Nizhny Novgorod . The Vinpearl Cable Car in Nha Trang , Vietnam connects the coastal town with an island in the sea 3.1 km away. Local public transport also includes the small gondola lifts with open gondolas for one person that connect the beach with the high places in Svetlogorsk (formerly Rauschen in East Prussia), Odessa or Yalta in Ukraine .
description
Gondola lifts have flat, horizontally aligned stations, as a longer, horizontal route is required for the passenger exchange and coupling process, as well as the hanging rails with the routes for engaging and disengaging, accelerating and braking the gondolas and the switches to the parking rails and Parking garages require horizontal space. In front of the valley station, there is always a hold-down support with longer roller batteries in single-rope systems , which creates a transition between the horizontal station exit and the subsequent incline. Conversely, in front of the mountain stations there is usually a support or group of supports or even a dome structure with extensive roller batteries, depending on the required rope deflection, which in turn ensure a moderate change in incline when transitioning from the incline to the horizontal mountain station entrance. In the stations, the rope, which is endlessly spliced into a loop, runs over a large deflection pulley, which is connected to the drive motor in one station and sits on a movable slide in the other, which is pulled back by the tension weights weighing several tons or by a hydraulic tensioning device so that the rope always has the same tension. Gondola lifts over very long stretches are divided into sections, which are self-contained systems with their own ropes and their own drive, but are usually connected to each other in the middle station by hanging rails so that the gondolas can automatically pass through from one section to the next while hanging on the rails without the passengers having to change trains. The middle station can also be designed as an angular station if the direction of the route changes at this point. Theoretically, this sequence of sections can be repeated as desired.
If this is required for the intended purpose, gondolas can be made largely barrier-free from a certain size (from approx. 8- / 10-person gondola) , with smaller vehicles there may be restrictions in the door width and space for wheelchairs or prams . In Switzerland, according to the Equal Opportunities for the Disabled, cable cars with nine or more seats per transport unit (with the exception of ski lifts and chairlifts) must be handicapped accessible.
Cable car variants
Monocable gondola
The detachable monocable gondola lift is the most common variant of the gondola lifts. One of the revolving ropes serves as both a suspension and a pull rope and is referred to as a hoisting rope . Their origins go back to the single- cable material ropeways , which were introduced by the Englishman Hodgson in 1868 and known as the English system . The cabins do not have a drive , but are attached to the hoisting rope with a coupling clamp ( Müller-Klemme and Von-Roll-Klemme as historical examples, current clamps with spiral or torsion springs of different functions and manufacturers) on departure from the station and on arrival solved again. The cabins, which were formerly known as egg gondolas because of their characteristic shape , have two to a maximum of 15 seats and are usually closed. However, there are also older lifts with open gondolas and only one standing room or half-open gondolas with two to four seats. In very warm regions of Asia, railways with half-open gondolas are still occasionally built today.
The detachable monocable gondola has a speed of up to 6 m / s (21 km / h) and a transport capacity of up to 3,600 people per hour.
There are simple single-cable gondolas (e.g. the cage lift ) in which the small open gondolas are firmly attached to the cable ( firmly clamped ). These systems can only move slowly to allow safe entry and exit. However, almost all of them have been replaced by other cable car systems.
Two-cable gondola / 2S gondola
Two-cable gondolas (2S gondolas) have a carrying rope and a circulating traction rope. The suspension cable is firmly anchored in one station and is kept at a constant tension in the other station with tension weights or hydraulic tensioning devices. As in the single-cable circulating system, the pulling rope runs around large deflection sheaves in the stations and moves the cabins, which travel with a chassis on the carrying rope and are attached to the pulling rope with a detachable clamp, from which they are uncoupled in the stations and guided on hanging rails become. Their origins go back to the two-rope material ropeways, which Adolf Bleichert introduced from 1872 and became known as the German system . The two-cable gondolas fell out of fashion with the increasing performance of the ropes, as single-rope gondolas were easier and cheaper to build. Lately the system has been used to build larger and more powerful gondola lifts. The cabins have up to 15 places and reach speeds of up to 7.5 m / s (27 km / h) and conveying capacities of 4000 people per hour.
Tricable gondola / 3S gondola
Three-cable gondolas (3S gondolas) were developed in order to be able to use larger, detachable gondolas that can hold up to 35 people, hang from two firmly anchored suspension ropes and are moved by a circulating pull rope. Similar to the aerial tramway, the two suspension ropes ensure a smooth ride and low wind sensitivity and allow large gondolas to be used. They have a travel speed of up to 7.5 m / s (27 km / h) and a transport capacity of up to 6,000 people per hour.
Funitel
A further development is the Funitel, in which each of the detachable gondolas, which can hold up to 24 people, hangs on two parallel, revolving hoisting ropes that are far apart (and that have no separate carrying rope). It has a travel speed of up to 7.5 m / s (27 km / h) and a transport capacity of 3,200 to 4,000 people per hour.
Group orbit
The group orbit has gondolas that are firmly attached to a revolving pulling or haulage rope in groups of two to five gondolas. The entire train stops for passengers in a group of gondolas to get on and off at the two stations. The travel speed is up to 7 m / s, the conveying capacity is low depending on the length due to the frequent stops. The advantage of these lifts is that they are cheaper to build than a detachable gondola lift. A well-known example is the Télécabine Panoramic Mont-Blanc in the Mont-Blanc group .
Kombibahn
With the combined lift, detachable gondolas and armchairs are used simultaneously in one lift, whereby the passenger can choose the type of transport. There are separate exit and entry areas for users of the gondolas and armchairs. It has a travel speed of up to 5 m / s (18 km / h) and a transport capacity of up to 3,400 people per hour.
Records
The longest cable car and at the same time the longest gondola lift in the world is the over 13 km long Norsjö aerial cableway , a gondola lift between Örträsk and Mensträsk in the municipality of Norsjö , Sweden. It is the remainder of the 96-kilometer ore cable car between Kristineberg and Boliden and was used for tourist purposes until 2018. 30 detachable cabins with four seats each hang on a suspension rope and were pulled by the pulling rope at a speed of 10 km / h. After damage to the concrete masts occurred in 2018, the railway was shut down. The system is currently (2020) for sale.
The longest monocable gondola in one section is the first section of the Bà Nà Hills Cable Car in Vietnam with an inclined length of 5042 m . At 1292 m, this section also has the greatest difference in altitude of a section of a gondola lift.
The second longest gondola lift worldwide is the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway in Australia with a total length of 7.5 km (two sections).
With a total length of 6.53 km, the Matterhornexpress gondola lift in Zermatt , canton Valais in Switzerland is the third longest gondola lift in the world. This 8-seater gondola was initially only from Zermatt to Schwarzsee, until the route to Trockener Steg was extended in 2010.
The Télécabine Panoramic Mont-Blanc with a length between the two stations of 4,972 m and 4,968 m horizontally has the largest span in Europe with 2,831 m and the second largest in the world (and a height above ground of around 300 m), followed by the 3S cable car near Kitzbühel , Austria with a span of 2,507 m and a height of 400 m above ground.
The Peak 2 Peak Gondola , a 3S cable car in Whistler (British Columbia) between the Roundhouse Lodge of the Whistler Mountains and the Rendezvous Restaurant on Blackcomb Mountain has the highest altitude of 436 m in the world.
The 3.1 km long Vinpearl Cable Car in Vietnam is probably the longest cable car in the world over an arm of the sea (at a height of around 60 m).
The highest aerial cableway and therefore also the gondola lift in the world is the Dagu Glacier Gondola in Sichuan , China .
The self-propelled Josefsberg cable car was self-propelled by each cabin, so that it could be operated by a single person.
See also
- Funicular , chair lift , cable railway
- Comparison of outstanding cable cars
- List of cable cars
- List of cable car accidents
Web links
- Association of German cable cars and drag lifts eV
- Doppelmayr Garaventa Group website
- Leitner ropeways website
- Website of the Norsjö cable car
- Technical information on the Grindelwald - Männlichen gondola lift
Individual evidence
- ↑ Explanations of the ordinance on the technical requirements for the disabled-friendly design of public transport , Federal Office of Transport ( Memento of the original from July 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF, accessed August 29, 2013).
